The day it all changed

Today we were scheduled for our 2nd try at a 3D ultrasound by Proview Ultrasound. The first time we tried a few weeks ago, baby was being a stinker and had both of it's legs straight in front of his/her face and the only good shot we got was of the one foot. So we were anxiously awaiting todays appointment and hoping that the baby would finally be a little more cooperative. We were so excited to finally get a peek at that adorable face.

When we first started with the ultrasound, the baby yet again had a little fist and foot drawn right up in front of it's tiny nose & mouth. I was doing all sorts of poking & prodding to try to get the wee one to give us a peek. Baby had no problem wiggling that foot back at me as I was poking at it. I laid there waiting & hoping that we could just get a brief glimpse. Then just like that, out of no where, baby moved both the fist & hand at the same time, almost as if to say ok, now you may see me and my heart about stopped. It was painfully obvious to even my untrained eye that the mouth didn't look right. I knew in that second I saw a cleft lip. I didn't say anything in hopes that maybe I just saw it all wrong. Time seemed to stop. My cousin-in-law was doing the ultrasound for us and he had switched the view right after I thought I saw the cleft and he started asking me questions. I stopped him and said "you saw a cleft too, didn't you?" When he said yes, I knew that my eyes hadn't been tricking me and I just started crying. It just broke my heart that my poor baby had something physically wrong. He asked if we wanted to continue I said of course. My baby is beautiful no matter what and I still wanted to be able to see every inch of his/her precious face.

The ride home afterwards was not at all how I imagined it would've been earlier that day. I just wept like I hadn't done in such a long time. I started analyzing everything I had done in early pregnancy, wondering if I did something to cause this. The kids, bless their hearts were amazing (they were with us for the ultrasound). We explained to them what we saw and what it would mean for the baby. They seemed to understand far more than I would've expected. In fact, Sarah had such a positive attitude and said that we should study about cleft lip/palate for school in order to help the baby better. They were certainly my rock this evening.

I cried until I didn't think I could cry anymore then I got on the internet and started researching. No sense in thinking about the "why" at this point but about where do we go from here. We talked about how this changes many things. We had been planning on a home birth up until this point but we felt since we didn't know what all we may be dealing with that we should switch back to the OB and a hospital birth. Which just pained me deeply as I was so looking forward to having a home birth.

I also shared my deepest fear with Kevin. I said you realize when there is one birth defect, that the chances of finding more is higher. He of course was thinking positively and said not to worry about that right now. We had immediately told a few people what we saw tonight as we knew we needed the prayers & support. And everyone said not to worry, a cleft now-a-days can be taken care of with no problem and that their little face will look amazing.

But I still have that nagging fear of the unknown and can't help but wonder if there is more that we haven't yet seen.